Pakistan’s continued support for resurgent militant groups hostile to the United States, coupled with warming U.S. military and business relations with India, is sharply diminishing Islamabad’s strategic importance as an ally to Washington, U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials and outside experts saidhttp://www.asiapacificstar.com/index.php/sid/247078283

Pakistan’s recent relations with Afghanistan have been one example of Pakistan as a state unable to define its foreign policy and national interests beyond a Cold War paradigm. An India-centric foreign policy has stalled Pakistan’s foreign-policy evolution and tainted its worldview of international politics. Pakistan currently has strained and difficult relations with all its neighbors except Chinahttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/pakistans-crippling-strategic-isolation-its-own-fault-16620

Pakistan assured the international community that it was strongly committed to the objective and had been proactively engaged with efforts to promote nuclear safety and security.http://www.dawn.com/news/1249661

Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said Tuesday that the American policies have failed in the region, calling for solution to problems in the region by regional countries. The minister told reporters in Islamabad that the region is suffering from the US policieshttp://www.globaltimes.cn/content/893557.shtml

24 NOVEMBER 2014

Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing nuclear programme in the world, a US-based think tank says

Russia’s decision to go ahead with the sale of Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan, even in the face of official Indian concerns, is being seen by some quarters as evidence of a “major” regional re-alignment in the wake of the American drawdown in Afghanistanhttp://thediplomat.com/2014/07/russias-strategic-pakistan-play/

Women constitute half of the Pakistan’s 190 million population and represent a big part of the labor force. However their vitality and potential has never been fully realized in the past 66 years after independence despite having surpassed their male counterpart in every field of life.http://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/economic-role-women-273/

Pakistan named a new army chief on Wednesday, promoting a veteran infantry commander to the most powerful position in the troubled nuclear-armed nation battling a homegrown Taliban insurgency. General Raheel Sharif will take over as head of the 600,000-strong army from General Ashfaq Kayani, who is retiring after six years at the helm.http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/381996/pakistan-names-new-army-chief

As Pakistan increasingly realizes that terrorism and militancy are by-products of its strategic depth maneuvers in the 2000s, instinctive mistrust of India is fading. The benefits of peace will also soon become clear, with high hope invested in the success of bilateral dialogue that such as that between the countries’ prime ministers on Sundayhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-300913.html

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child recently published a report noting that Pakistan has the world’s second-largest number of children out of school, while in April 2012 UNICEF indicated that some 20 million Pakistani children, including an estimated 7.3 million of primary school age, are not in school.http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/09/26/pakistans-dismal-education-prospects/

Over 46 million people exercised their right to vote in Pakistan in May earlier this year — close to 55 per cent of the population and a record turnout since 1988. Pakistan’s first transition from one civilian government to another is an incredible achievement for a country that has been under military rule for a large part of its history.http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/09/14/can-nawaz-rescue-pakistan/

With an olive green head scarf poking out from her helmet, Ayesha Farooq flashes a cheeky grin when asked if it is lonely being the only war-ready female fighter pilot in the Islamic republic of Pakistan. Farooq, from Punjab province’s historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade – there are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat. http://www.voanews.com/content/pakistan-female-fighter-pilot-wins-battle-of-sexes/1680672.html

5 JUNE 2013

Nawaz Sharif formally elected Pakistan Prime Minister for historic third time

Here are the results of the 11 May general elections in Pakistan, which were won by Nawaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party. Polling was postponed in some areas, with the results of re-runs still to come in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22558474

When Pakistan holds elections on 11 May 2013 it will be the first time in Pakistan’s history that an elected government hands over power to another elected government. Though this is a positive development, most Pakistani and international observers are not optimistic that the elections form part of a broader transition from procedural to substantive democracy http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/13/pakistans-democracy-is-yet-to-be-substantive/

Government officials say 21 out of 23 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban have been executed by their captors in northwest Pakistan. Naveed Akbar Khan, a local government official, told the AFP news agency on Sunday: « We found 21 bullet riddled bodies of security personnel a short while ago in an uninhabited area. » http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/12/20121229214853934265.html

Leaders from around the world have condemned the shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, an education and rights activist in the northwestern Pakistani region of Swat. Yousafzai was shot by Taliban gunmen on Tuesday in her hometown of Mingora while on her way home from school.

Mualana Wali-u-Rehman, known in militant circles as « Molvi Sahib », carries a Turkish-made Zigana-K pistol and a Russian AKS-74U assault rifle. Rehman, a former activist from Pakistan’s largest religious-political party, Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam, was one of the founding members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban, or TTP) in South Waziristan, when it emerged in late 2007.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NG25Df03.html

19 JULY 2012

Pakistan’s courts take on the ISI

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency to close a notorious cell that focused on monitoring internal politics, in a direct challenge to the ISI’s ability to operate as a « state within a state ».http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NG19Df02.html

10 JULY 2012

Protests in Islamabad against the government’s decision to re-open NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.

Armed with the support of his party, allies, and some argument, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani took his turn on Friday 27 to hit back hard at his political foes, telling the National Assembly he would not cede office owing to his conviction by the Supreme Court for contempt unless the house disqualified himhttp://dawn.com/2012/04/28/defiant-pm-vows-not-to-cede-office/

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has found Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani guilty in a contempt of court case. However, the court gave Mr Gilani only a symbolic sentence and he will not have to serve any time in jail.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17848796

Pakistan’s government has issued orders banning the country’s largest Islamic extremist group. Activists from the pro-al-Qaeda group formerly known as the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP), or Soldiers of the Companions of the Prophet, have been convicted of killing hundreds of Shia Muslimshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17322095

The charge that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence is supporting Taliban fighters in Afghanistan is just the latest of many charges directed at Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence service, which for decades has been accused of plotting assassinations, backing armed groups, and organising attacks against neighbouring countrieshttp://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/02/2012218213493884.html

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